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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114031">Mad Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october'>soft_october</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Relationship, Supernatural Elements, oh my god they were roommates (sort of)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:16:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,596</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Before moving into the new flat, Aziraphale had never considered himself mad. </i> </p><p>Aziraphale is quite fond of his new flat, even if the new tenant never got rid of his hideous furniture and there's a strange portrait of a man he's never met hanging on the wall. </p><p>When the mysterious footsteps begin, though, he begins to reconsider. </p><p>13 Days of Halloween - Prompt: Ghosts</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale &amp; Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mad Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/gifts">racketghost</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for racket's 13 Days of Halloween, prompt #1, Ghosts<br/>A HUGE thank you to racketghost for this wonderful prompt list that finally got me to write this story that's been kicking around since at LEAST last year.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before moving into the new flat, Aziraphale had <em>never </em>considered himself mad. </p><p>Oh sure, there had been the usual comments here and there, before the new place. The nightwatchman back at uni, for instance, the night he’d gotten himself locked in the library (“Must be <em>daft</em>, all alone in the stacks here at night.”). Or his family (“Our Aziraphale is just a bit... <em>odd</em>,” Gabriel had said, but, hey it’s family, and families are just Like That.) Employers in particular had been fond of comments such as “Aziraphale does have his little <em>peculiar </em>way of doing things,” and he was no stranger to a well placed “<em>very</em> eccentric” or two aimed in his vague direction But he never truly believed there was anything more to it until he moved into the old, oddly shaped little flat which he had taken without seeing anything more than the pictures posted online. The price was outrageously good for the area, and he was delighted that he had happened upon quite “a steal.” </p><p> He arrived in on a dreary Saturday morning, with his meager host of possessions and his many, many, crates of books, which had caused the movers to glance at each other with something between exasperation and fear. The previous tenant had certainly kept the place spotless, even if whoever it was did leave behind several books on astronomy, some odds and ends in the refrigerator (those dressings and condiments that always seem to be there even though you can never remember buying them), and some furniture that was either incredibly ostentatious or minimal to the extreme. These dreary pieces went exactly nowhere towards livening up the gray, cement box of an interior, but Aziraphale hoped to replace them with comfortable couches and plush carpets soon enough. </p><p>But nothing explained the portrait. </p><p>It hung in the sitting room, just above the most uncomfortable looking sofa Aziraphale had ever seen. The man in the painting, dark hair, dressed in black, wearing sunglasses and possessed of a smirk to rival the Mona Lisa’s, stood with his arms folded, a position Aziraphale thought was intended to radiate strength, but came off as more defensive than anything.  Aziraphale could not say what it was about the portrait that captivated him so, but he <em>could </em>say that more than one cup of cocoa had gone cold in that first few days as he tried to work out the puzzle of that smile, becoming a veritable expert on the thing in the process. Was it a rendering of the previous tenant? But then why leave it behind? An ex of theirs? One of those paintings you find at the antique store and bring it home only to find that all the things in your life suddenly start going wrong? </p><p>Aziraphale chuckled at the thought, at first. </p><p>But then he couldn’t stop wondering about the painting. </p><p>It was not <em>just </em>the portrait that led him to worry about the state of his health. The flat was - well it was <em>quite</em> odd, with the way it was laid out, what with the large attic he couldn’t access, the door to the next flat over that was several inches off the floor and always locked, the way the light streamed in through the curtains each morning and crept along the smooth floors as he sat at the kitchen counter, watching the curtains flutter from strange draughts. </p><p>Or maybe it was that <em>fucking throne</em> the previous tenant left behind that was creeping him out so much. </p><p>Aziraphale may have been able to dismiss the odd feelings, the portrait, the furniture, but what he could <em>not </em> simply say were the consequences of an overactive imagination were the footsteps that began exactly one week after Aziraphale moved in.  </p><p><em>Thump. Thump. Thump. </em> </p><p>“I’m just dreaming,” he tried to tell himself, at first, but the deep sense of dread that lodged in his chest was too acute to be a nightmare. </p><p>
  <em>Thump. Thump. Thump. </em>
</p><p>Just over his head. Back and forth. Back and forth. </p><p><em>Thump. Thump. Thump. </em> </p><p>He tried to reason that it was the house settling - it <em>was </em> a dreadfully old house, after all.</p><p><em>Thump. Thump. Thump. </em> </p><p> But the sounds - the footfalls, he admitted at last in a fit of terror - could not be anything else, not with the measured tread, the pacing back and forth, the occasional pause by the south wall, where the windows were. </p><p><em>Thump. Thump. Thump. </em> </p><p>Aziraphale was not a man given to fancies (at least that's what he told himself). He was not a man who jumped to the first conclusion he came too (though his customers might say otherwise). Yet there, as he clutched the blanket and listened to the pacing above his head, he had to make allowance for the fact that there might be something going on in his new home that he did not quite understand. </p><p>And then - well, all <em>sorts</em> of ridiculous supposings started running into each other, one after another. The portrait. Why was it left behind? Suppose the previous tenant had - had <em>died</em>? What if he had died <em>in the building?</em> What if he - what if he had come to some sort of <em>terrible end?</em> <em>That’s</em> why the rent was so cheap, <em>that’s</em> why the furniture was still strewn about the place!  The ghost of the man in the portrait, it was <em>him</em>, and he was pacing up and down the length and breadth of the inaccessible attic, mourning the fact that Aziraphale was - was sitting in his chairs, contemplating tossing the whole lot in the rubbish to be replaced with tartan, staring at his portrait in the morning and the afternoon and the evening. He imagined the ghost, with his handsome smile, those glasses sliding down his nose, his eyes fixed on - on, well, Aziraphale. </p><p>Another feeling crept in alongside the terror, then, and Aziraphale tried to ignore it. </p><p>He must have fallen off at some point during the night, as the next thing he knew the sun was streaming in through the windows and birds were chirping outside, as if nothing at all had happened during the night, and it all made Aziraphale feel incredibly foolish. </p><p>“You don't scare me!” Aziraphale said to the portrait that morning. (It occurred to him that sane people did <em>not</em> yell at portraits of good looking men that they did not know, but then he took another sip of cocoa and forgot all about it.) “I'll have this dreadful furniture out on the pavement this weekend, see if I don't!” </p><p>The portrait did not reply, and even though Aziraphale kept checking out of the corner of his eye all day, it's sunglasses did not betray if the eyes behind them had tried to follow him about the room. </p><p>He checked the attic windows from the street, and they looked just as abandoned as they always had. A quick scan through the local news turned over not a single murder, suspicious death, or even something dark yet comical, like death by choking on a scone, or something, and Aziraphale abandoned it as a dead end. </p><p>“You’re overtired,” he said to the bathroom mirror after brushing his teeth. “Get a good eight hours tonight, and everything will be right as rain in the morning. He put on his favorite pair of pyjamas, curled up under a quilt, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. </p><p>Until. </p><p>
  <em>THUMP THUMP THUMP. </em>
</p><p>The footsteps were <em>crashing </em>through the house, and Aziraphale woke with a start, breathing heavily into the still night air. </p><p>
  <em>THUMP THump thump. </em>
</p><p>Oh. Perhaps the ghost was calming down? There was another clatter of footsteps, and then a silence so loud Aziraphale could hear the tremor of his own heartbeat against the bedclothes. </p><p>He kept his ears open for other noises, perhaps the drag of a chain along the ground like he was the next Ebeneezer Scrooge, or a ghostly moan (the idea of which made his face warm and his breathing go all funny again). He thought he <em>might</em> have heard a voice after the footsteps stopped, but by then it was three in the morning, and it really could have just been his imagination. </p><p>Couldn't it? </p><p>“Check the CO,” Michael recommended, when he called her agency the next morning in a fit of desperation. “All those old buildings are full of the stuff. It’s probably making you hallucinate.” There was a tapping on her end of the line, and Aziraphale knew she was flipping through dozens of emails and he had about thirty seconds before some theatrical crisis seized her attention. </p><p>“But what if -”</p><p>“Aziraphale I have <em>fifteen</em> out of work actors to sort out this morning and if they don’t have work by the end of the week - well, do you <em>want</em> a repeat of the Andrew Lloyd Weber Riots?” Aziraphale very much did <em>not</em>. “So, check the CO and - I don’t know, call me in a few days or something - <em>Newton if that computer has fried again you can just -</em> ” Aziraphale blinked a few times at the phone before she realized she’d hung up. </p><p>He checked the CO monitor, realized he didn’t know what he was supposed to check for, and stumbled about the flat until he found the instructions abandoned in a desk drawer alongside an outrageously expensive watch. </p><p>The CO in the flat was <em>fine</em>. </p><p>He was <em>sure</em> he wasn’t mad. </p><p>It was a nice day, when it all came to head. There were no footsteps or odd noises during the night, and Aziraphale went for a walk to clear his head, sat alone in the park, did a bit of reading, watched couples argue about what to have for dinner that night and smugly ordered sushi from the phone app one of his co-workers had insisted on setting up for him. He put his feet up on the hideous coffee table and watched an old film while struggling with his chopsticks, and only occasionally made a comment or two on acting and script to the portrait that hung impassively above him. </p><p>That night, however… </p><p>
  <em>Thump. Thump Thump. </em>
</p><p>Aziraphale sat bolt upright in bed. This time they were coming from the <em>kitchen</em>, where there was an <em>entire</em> slice of matcha cake sitting on the counter, right where <em>any</em> ghost could just - </p><p>He wasn’t going to stand for this any longer.</p><p> If it was a ghost - well, then he was going to put this whole ghost nonsense “to rest,” as it were, once and for all! Aziraphale would be firm, he would - he would <em>demand </em>the ghost depart, or at the very <em>least</em> set some ground rules for their continued cohabitation! He picked up the largest book in his collection (he couldn’t say, later, just <em>exactly</em> what a book would have done against a ghost) donned his dressing gown, and crept into the living room, where he could see an eerie light emanating from behind the kitchen door. </p><p>Like all horror cliches, he gulped in an effort to steel his nerves, tightened his grip on the book, and barged into the room, his heart pounding in his ears. </p><p>The light was coming from the open refrigerator (a terrible spectacle indeed) and a thin,  dark figure stood before it, peering into its depths. </p><p>The ghost! </p><p>He must have made some noise, some gasp of acknowledgment, because the ghost turned around, milk bottle in hand, frowning at the label. </p><p>“Ah, there you are,” the ghost said. “I was hoping to finally run into - ” but before Aziraphale could know what, exactly, the ghost was hoping to run into, his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out. </p><p>When he came to, he was staring at the portrait. Lying on the sofa then. But hadn’t he been in the kitchen? And why did the cushions feel like the hideous cold tile that lined the - was the portrait moving?  It was moving about in a very fretful manner, and - it - it was the portrait <em>talking</em> to him. </p><p>Babbling, more like. </p><p>“I mean I’ll take you to the A&amp;E, of course I will, best thing to do really, didn’t mean to -” </p><p>“Wh - what?” Aziraphale asked. </p><p>“Oh thank - well thank <em>someone</em>, you’re awake!” The man, for Aziraphale was lucid enough to realize that this was not a ghost, sank down to the floor in abject relief. He passed a hand over his head, shoving his glasses past his hairline, and Aziraphale found room among the indignity of it all to make a note of how those eyes shone amber in the light of the fridge. </p><p>“Now see here,” Aziraphale began, hoping his tone was in no way hampered by his position on the floor. “Just because you left all your things here doesn’t mean you can just come barging back here in the middle of the night and go through <em>my</em> fridge -”</p><p>“<em>Your</em> fridge?” The man arched an eyebrow at him. “You might have filled it up but <em>I’m</em> the one who bought it after the last one broke and the fucking landlord wouldn’t -”</p><p>“No matter <em>who</em> it belongs to its full of <em>my </em>things now, and - and you’ll have to leave at once, you can come back to collect your things when -”</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> not going <em>anywhere</em>,” he declared. “<em>You’re</em> the one who moved in here without so much as a ‘hello, nice to meet you, I have incredibly exacting opinions on how to organize the fridge, hope you don’t mind.’” </p><p>“Well the drinks should all go on the bottom and the food should -”</p><p>“There’s hardly <em>any room at all</em>! I get back here after my first vacation in <em>years</em> only to find <em>you’ve </em>rearranged everything without so much as a <em>by your leave!</em>” </p><p>Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue, before the full meaning of the words sank in. Then he just blinked. </p><p>The man blinked back. </p><p>“You - you still live here?” Aziraphale squeaked. The man’s eyes went wide. </p><p>“Oh my fucking - <em>Yes</em> I still live here! Didn’t the landlord -” he shook his head in disgust. “No, of course not, why would -” </p><p>“I fear there’s been a terrible misunderstanding,” said Aziraphale, who was coming to terms with the fact that the man in the portrait was even more handsome in person, and also that he was the sort of person to hang up a large portrait of himself in the living room, and <em>also</em> that this man was his roommate, and <em>had</em> been for the entirety of the time he had been living here. </p><p>“You’re telling <em>me</em>. I’ll ring the landlord in the morning, pretend to be my own lawyer. We’ll see what kind of fire that lights under them.” The man hoisted himself up from the floor, and held out his hand to help Aziraphale.</p><p>“Crowley,” he said, by way of introduction. “Sorry about - well, about all of it.” There was a blush spreading across Crowley's face that Aziraphale supposed was mirrored in his own. </p><p>“Aziraphale.” </p><p>Later, they would discuss the whole thing on the sofa over a bottle of wine. The strange layout of the house, Crowley’s room in the attic and the staircase behind door Aziraphale <em>thought</em> led to the next flat over, Crowley’s odd hours (and sense of decor), Aziraphale’s plans for a makeover in tartan (which was <em>flatly</em> rejected at once), a tentative offer of going to breakfast together in the morning on the part of Crowley, which was at once accepted. </p><p>But for now, as Aziraphale shook Crowley’s hand for the first time, it was all he could do to try and ignore the bloom in his chest as their fingers made contact. </p><p>Crowley’s hands were warm. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did I steal this entire plot from an Over the Garden Wall episode? I SURE FUCKIN' DID! Go watch GO and Over the Garden Wall and have a great fall!</p><p>If you spotted the Toast of London reference, please come yell about it with me here on tumblr at <a href="https://soft-october-night.tumblr.com/">@soft-october-night</a>!!</p><p>If you DIDN'T catch the Toast of London reference, then check out that show, THEN come yell at mere here <a href="https://soft-october-night.tumblr.com/">@soft-october-night</a>!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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